The Bubble Man

I don’t remember how we got in contact with this gentleman but we called him the “Bubble Man” in our story and he achieved some notoriety once it aired. We had no idea what to expect when we met him for the shoot and the whole production turned out to be a case-study for improvisation. Host Andy Bumatai, writer Randy Brandt and I just “winged it” and made it up as we went along. The “Bubble Man” turned out to be a perfect foil for Andy’s comic timing and skill. I’m just surprised to this day that the old JC Penny store in Ala Moana Center gave us permission to shoot inside; I can’t imagine what we told them in order to get their blessing (it was not in exchange for commercial time). In fact, shoppers were just as surprised as we were with the sight of a man wearing what appeared to be a large space helmet made out of a garbage can. For me, the editing process was very grueling because I had shot so much random stuff that it took me forever to condense them into the most effective sequences. The selection of music was also very time-consuming as I knew we needed to remain faithful to our music-driven style but each piece of music had to be an integral part of the comedy. Andy’s unscripted advice about taking home anything when there’s no sales people around still makes me laugh.